Independent senator David Norris has said the publicizing of comments attributed to him regarding incest and the age of consent is an attempt to "sabotage" his presidential campaign.

The comments originally appeared in an article written by Helen Lucy Burke in Magill magazine in 2002.

Last Monday she was a guest of RTE’s Liveline program, where she felt the need to re-publicise Norris’ comments due to his bid for presidency.

Responding to the comments, Norris said the article was almost a decade old and was merely a slur on his campaign.

"This is an attempt to sabotage my campaign. It’s a 10-year-old article. There is nothing new and I want to ask why is this being brought up now... I abhor, and I’ve made that clear, again and again on the record, I abhor the abuse of children, sexual, emotional or physical," he said.

"These are the greatest insults that can be levelled against any man, any person. Look at my speeches on the Roscommon incest case. Look at what I said on the Ryan Report. I was one of the very few people in the House that read those reports from beginning to end and put a clear and concise case showing what had happened and how it could be prevented."

"Incest is illegal. I am a legislator. Do people think I have lost my reason altogether? That I would be advocating criminal behaviour?"

Norris has said he will take the matter to court if Burke continues to publicize the issue.

"I’ve placed the material with my legal advisers but I’m very reluctant take an elderly person of, presumably, limited means to drag them through the courts."